MIXED BAG. PRE-E3 2017: Dreams & Predictions

AHH! AFTER 10,000 YEARS, I'M FREE!

Salutacions, mis amigos. This isn't so much a comeback as I wanted to speculate and hype myself up a little bit when it comes to this year's E3 and this is the easiest way for me to share my excitement without annoying every person I know. I've been in a weird gaming rut in a couple years but, since Breath of the Wild's release and the general glut of cool games in 2017, I have been a little more optimistic about this being the start of a new gaming golden age. Yes, despite the fact that last year I was pretty beat down by year after year of tired franchises, micro transactions, pre-order bonuses, over-priced HD re-releases and collector's editions, pay-to-win, bad RNG, open world multiplayer games and all the other nonsense that plagues the industry at the moment, I want to try to get excited about this year's e3. I think there is gonna be a lot of exciting news.

 Before that, a short recap of all things I've done since I put the blog on indefinite hiatus to focus on other projects:

"NOTHING!"

Just kidding. I've been writing a lot of content for 1-2 Dungeons and Dragons supplement books, playing tons of Dungeons and Dragons & Overwatch, I'm gonna be an uncle within a week, I'm still working at my deadbeat job but hey I'm in a better place than 2015-2016! Plus check out these awesome cosplays I did last summer at Anime Blues Con:

I feel pretty good at the moment. Now... ON TO THE SHOW!

FTW FRIDAY! COUCH COINS, GIANT ROBOTS, & LIFETIME MOVIES!

TVMAXWELL'S COUCH COINS!

Thanks to the Arrow and Game of Thrones and living in Australia for a few years, I've got a lot of hardcore British to Australian accents for Dungeons and Dragons. Because they can be hilarious or scary or awesome! Some day I'll share them with you!

"I KEEP MY PROMISES!"

ADHD- MICHAEL BAY'S EVANGELION!

A little bit of anime weird in the form of an ADHD animation that conceptualizes Michael Bay's rumored version of Evangelion that gets it wrong because, while Michael Bay's film would be terrible, the cartoon is entertaining in a terrible bad awesome sorta way.

A DEADLY ADOPTION TRAILER!

The Lifetime Channel movie has become synonymous with topical based-on-real-life dramas where a good woman is betrayed by her spouse via a manipulative third party that brings out the dumb, violent, and sex-driven psychopath hiding in every suburban household. I think. I wouldn't know. I don't watch cable. BUT I DO WATCH WILL FERRELL MOVIES!

And this looks like a hilarious played straight bit of satire.

MIXED BAG. PRESENTS LOOT CRATE APRIL 2015: "FANTASY" REVIEW!

MIXED BAG. PRESENTS

LOOT CRATE APRIL 2015

"FANTASY" REVIEW: "AS YOU WISH."

A little earlier this time around but hey, like a good wizard, Loot Crates are never late nor early, they arrive precisely when they mean to.

And it has been a big month:

• Easter saw an unexpected reunion between our family and my uncles (who I hadn't seen in a few years) who came with my Grandpa.
• I finally got my King Dedede Amiibo and a lot of Star Wars figures, a couple books, and a special item I'll feature tomorrow.
• I beat Super Mario Bros. 3 (finally) and started working on Far Cry 4, watching The Arrow, and played more Vampire the Masquerade.
• I watched Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Watch it.
• I finally got my driver's license!

2015 has been pretty interesting, so far.

Now, let's talk about Loot Crate:

EX. (LOOT CRATE OCTOBER 2014 "FEAR")

Loot Crate is a subscription based service where members pay a fee (based on their subscription plan) to receive a themed mystery box every month in the mail (last month's theme, pictured above, was "Villains") filled with nerdy products from companies like Nintendo, DC, Marvel, Capcom and much more. The contents of the box usually contain things like exclusive figures, a t-shirt, a magnet, pin/s, posters, comics, books, toys, and pretty much everything you can think of from "dragon-flavored" Jerky in April's "Dragon" Loot Crate to Deadpool socks (pictured above).

This is the perfect surprise for self-professed nerds that love cool stuff and weird stuff alike.

If you're lucky, you might even be the lucky member to get the monthly Mega Crate which always has a value of $750 or more!

And so, for as low as $11.67 + $6 SH, you can become a Looter too! Plus, if you use any of the various codes you can find online, you can get discounts. 

This is my eighth Loot Crate review. If you wanna check out last month's review for MARCH 2015 "Covert" Loot Crate, check out the link HERE.

 This month's Loot Crate has a theme of "Fantasy" and so, if you know anything about me, my expectations were high and, with the promise of Dungeons and Dragons, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Princess Bride items (and a T-Shirt), I couldn't wait to open my box!

FTW FRIDAY! SUPER MUGI AND BONK PLAY FINAL FANTASY VII!

mugi why?

Anime is ridiculous. Ridiculously sweet.

On last Sunday, my Dungeons and Dragons group voted on which one of our players was "best waifu" and my friend Jas won hands down. These are the sorts of conversations you have over rum and board games. These are the voyages of the star ship Dorkerprise.

PROJARED- SUPER BONK!

Why have I never heard of Super Bonk?

Super Bonk is ridiculous. Ridiculously amazing!

In gaming news, after beating Shadow of Mordor and Link Between Worlds I am back to puttering around GTA V at my leisure and I smoke League every day. In new news, I got into the Heroes of the Storm beta and I must admit I am having fun. It's not gonna replace any of my other mobas, but it is pretty fun.

videogamedunkey- FINAL FANTASY VII

Final Fantasy VII is ridiculous. Ridiculously overrated.

Quick Jesus! Take the wheel before I'm overrun by angry fans!

WORD OF THE DAY! 2/12/14! (ALIGNMENTS PT. 1 LAWFUL GOOD)

COUNTER MONKEY- WHERE HAVE ALL THE LAWFUL GOODS GONE?

lawful good [law-fuhl-gud]
noun
1. The alignment that upholds society and society's laws in the name of the greater good and prosperity for all. This alignment upholds the values of truth, justice and compassion, while striving to bring structure and security.
adjective
2. Anything that falls within the perimeter of the lawful good alignment (see 1. above).

EX. Holy crap! I am opening up a big can of worms by doing a word of the day about an alignment without explaining the other alignments but, if you have to start anywhere, I suppose Lawful Good is a good place to start.

Real life morality and ethics is complicated. So complicated that it has led many a philosopher to question the definition or validity of these terms in relationship to real humans. After all, real humans are far more enigmatic than most fictional characters because, hypothetically, we can know exactly how they feel and think about everything. In reality, one only knows one true self or that only one could possibly know one true self. Still, we categorize the way that individuals and organizations act based on what they espouse through their words and actions. In fiction, we can have debates about where characters fall upon the spectrum of good versus evil and chaos versus order.

Dungeons and Dragons uses these principles for the alignment system.

The purpose of the alignment system, at least in my opinion, is to give a guideline for players or DM in understanding character's ethics and morality to better translate them to roleplaying through the character's actions and motivations. Therefore, every character in Dungeons and Dragons is defined by their alignment. Their alignment is define along two crossing axis:

The morality axis (Good vs. Evil) and the ethical axis (Order vs. Chaos).

Good is most simply defined by altruism and the respect of other living beings and evil is by lack of altruism and a lack of respect for other living beings. Law is defined by a focus on honor and respect for society's rules and chaos is defined by a focus on individual freedom and expression. Neutrality defines the middle ground between these two extremes with true neutral having neither defined morals or ethics.

Today we're talking about the strict but idealistic alignment, Lawful Good or "the Paladin alignment" (despite the fact that a paladin can be any alignment but tend toward lawful alignments).

What's a paladin?

That's a paladin. In the literal sense.

A paladin is a holy knight that crusades in the name of good and order while wielding divine magic and martial discipline. In the dungeons and dragons sense.

A paladin, in a less literal sense or even Dungeons and Dragons sense, are righteous heroes who sacrifice their own comfort & safety to protect and promote the greater good. They can also be called "paragons".

Paladins and paragons are heroes. And (usually) they are lawful good. Because, arguably, lawful good is the most heroic alignment.

Lawful good characters strike a balance between law and good; good dictates their altruistic morality and motivates them to put others before themselves and law dictates their means to altruism through creating and/or upholding systems that promote the greater good.

Lawful good societies are built upon laws that protect and promote the populous. They build institutions to uphold the law and build further institutions to protect these institutions. The promote those that serve these institutions.

A lawful good character must strike a balance between justice and mercy and a lawful good society must strike a balance between placing importance on structures and rules creates to protect the people and the freedom of peoples these structures and rules are designed to protect.

An example of a morality-ethics based conflict for a lawful good character would be catching a hungry street urchin stealing an apple from a vendor. Law would dictate that they hand the urchin over to the authorities. Compassion would dictate a more merciful path, especially if the law is harsh on thieves, considering the specifics of the situation. After all, not all crimes are equal. A starving child stealing an apple cannot be compared to a thug robbing a carriage. As a lawful good society, it would be important to try and solve the problem on a macro scale by making sure punishments fit the crime while also seeking to create institutions that promote welfare and opportunities for the poor/downtrodden while also seeking to protect the innocent from suffering in the future.


What are some examples of lawful good characters?

Aragorn, Superman, Spock, Captain America, Robocop, Carrot Ironfounderson, Optimus Prime

So, why pick Lawful Good? You want to play a character that upholds the law, protects the weak, and serves as a paragon in his society.

And, if you don't know just how controversial alignments can be (trust me when I saw someone will take umbrage with my definitions), try to see if you agree with all of the characters in the following image. I don't. But I do agree with most of it. And that'll do!

WORD OF THE DAY! 1/30/15!

flumph [flumf]
noun
1. Dungeons and Dragons. First published in the 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons book, The Fiend Folio, it is a Lawful Good aberration, from space/outer planes, resembling a glowing jellyfish with eye stalks that floats using air jets that make the noise that gives them their name. Surprisingly intelligent and wise, they live in well-organized and harmonious communities and communicate telepathically with other life forms. They, harmlessly, feed off the emotional energy of other beings and react to their emotions/behavior accordingly; they are attracted to good creatures and repelled by evil. Flumphs are quick to make friends with those that can look past their appearance and, generally, serve heroes in the fight against heroes by warning them of alien threats and assisting them in their own way.

EX. Out of all of the extremely silly monsters in Dungeons and Dragons history, the humble flumphs are my favorite.

The angle of appeal with these alien creatures is they look like some sort of random alien creatures that would swarm heroes and take part in something out of a bad Japanese hentai but, instead, are some of the nicest and most helpful creatures you will ever meet! These mini Flying Spaghetti monsters are like the pugs of D & D-- ugly, adorable and a little bit tragic. After all, most heroes would just assume they're horrible monsters and cut them down without giving them the opportunity to explain themselves. And that's a shame because, unlike many outer beings, Flumphs are not complete and utter tosspots.

My adventuring party in the Fifth Edition game I am currently playing in, as my human cleric of Lathander, Geth Dawnbraker, we met a Flumph! The pitiful creature seemed a little young, a little lost, and very distraught. It couldn't fly or, rather, it was afraid to fly! Immediately taking the little creature under his wing, Geth Dawnbreaker gave him an encouraging speech and, with a little divine intervention, sent the creature on it's way. And, with Geth making all sorts of deals and alignments with outsiders that might not have his best interests at heart, he'll need friends without ulterior motives that owe him a favor.

And a flumph is a good friend to have.

MUSIC MON! HAVE A SMASHING D & D CHRISTMAS!

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS:

TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

I actually got the 5th Edition Player's Handbook (two of them by accident) for Christmas and I gotta say, after playing the system from Level 1 to Level 6 that it is a pretty decent little system that blend mechanics from 3rd and 4th editions and incorporates in some nice improvements/innovations that make the game feel like classic D & D but less convoluted than 4th edition's more video game like mechanics.

On the other hand, here are spoony's opinions which range from profound to whiny-- because that is how all nerd opinions go. Or have you not been reading my blog?

STAR WARS: EPISODE VII... THE MUSICAL?

Look. Hey. At least is not the actual Star Wars Christmas Special? Right!? RIGHT!?!

STARBOMB: SMASH!

 
For my friend's Christmas get-together this year we exchanged gifts and played Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U. As per usual, things got a little salty, people cursed loudly and let out cries of agony as they were mother f***ing smashed and feelings were hurt. But, after a trip to Dairy Queen and a few rounds of Ultimate Werewolf, we remembered the true meaning of Christmas.

All Villagers are a**holes.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE TREES!

 This year my Mother put up three Christmas trees:

Our usual Christmas tree with all of our ornaments (of which I am especially fond of the Disney ornaments but my favorite is probably the Greedo & Han Solo Cantina Scene Diorama), a patriotic red, white, and blue tree and a snowman tree.

The trees are taking over.

MUSIC MON! FIVE NIGHTS AT THE SPOOKY SCARY MONSTER MASH!

JONTRON IN "SPOOKY SCARY SKELETONS!"

In the 5th Edition game of Dungeons and Dragons that I've been playing our wizard died a couple of weeks ago. He was minding his own business, throwing nukes at mobs, when, just after clearing a room, he was struck down. A bugbear had been sneaking up behind our party for an hour or so, shadowing us, and managed to get the drop on our most vulnerable friend. A bugbear weighs about 300 lbs of muscle and wields a morning star. The morning star collapsed his head like an accordion and there was nothing we could do. He was dead.

Or so we thought.

The evil book we had been planning to destroy made itself known. It reached out and tempted us to use it to bring our friend back to life. When we refused, there was a struggle but it managed to fly into the hands of the wizard's corpse and resurrect him.

Time will tell the fate of the wizard with an undead book for a heart.

KEY OF AWESOME: MODERN MONSTER MASH!

As for another story of horror, I continued the Call of Cthulhu game I began two years ago by running the spectacular Mansions of Madness scenario, set in 1920's Massachusetts, "The Crack'd and Crook'd Mans". I made one small addition in the way of introducing a new character:

Johnny grew up at a trading post in the Amazon. He was not born Johnny. It was the name the British missionaries gave him. His tribe lived at and around the trading post since it served as a way for them to make a living and the mission supplied many charitable acts like education, medicine, and other necessities. He learned many of the old legends of his ancestors, the Yandalapuma tribe or "Missing Peoples", but he didn't take much heed of it. He eventually became a guide, leading white men through the rain forest, and helping to keep his people's livelihood afloat. Johnny's life wasn't special but it was good.

Until Arthur Cornthwaite arrived. A friendly American man who came talking to the Yandalapuma members and, eventually, asked if they would show him to the "grey dome". The elders refused and forbid anyone help him. After all, the grey dome was beyond the "undrinkable river" that even the tribe members were not allowed to cross and all that fell in the shadow of the grey dome were "taken by ghosts and never seen again".

But Johnny could only think of what he could do with the money the man offered.

So, he came to Cornthwaite and secret and agreed to show him to the river. He took him and his men to the darkest part of the rainforest in the shadow of the dome but refused to join them beyond the river. He waited for a few days for them to return to no avail and so he returned home. A fortnight later, Arthur Cornthwaite stumbled into the trading post, looking like he had seen a ghost. His men were no where to be seen and he quickly left to get the first boat back to America. Johnny used the money to do a lot of good for his people but something was eating a way at his conscience.

He had weird dreams about the dome, about a dark pit, about men screaming, about shadows that crawl and about Arthur Cornthwaite being followed home by a shadow. Eventually, distressed, he told his grandfather. The man was disappointed. He told him that he had broken tribal law and that he had allowed a great darkness to cross the river. The elder told him that if he wishes to have his spirit freed of guilt that he must find the man and kill the ghost following him before it is too late! He sent Johnny on the task and gave him a small pouch filled with a fine white crystalline powder said to ward off the ghosts. Johnny made his way, quick as he could, up to Gamwell, Massachusetts where Mr. Cornthwaite was missing and strangeness was afoot.

Will Johnny succeed in his quest? I won't know until next week!

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S ANIMATED SONG!

 My friends thing Five Nights at Freddy's frightened me. They are wrong!

I was simply startled by the loud noise and flashing animation when I jumped out of the chair. The reason I don't want to play is the tension. I swear. Why would I lie?

I ain't 'fraid of nothin'!

(But seriously, if you haven't experienced Five Nights, you should check it out. Also, the latest game theory video about it is really creepy and fascinating. Enjoy.)

 GAME THEORY: FIVE NIGHTS SCARIEST MONSTER IS YOU!

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES! HOMEBREW: GROOKI & THE GRIPPLI!

PATHFINDER HOMEBREW: 

GRIPPLIS

 A couple weeks ago, I previewed some of my very favorite homebrew content that I cooked up for my newest Pathfinder game; specifically, I previewed the Dragon-Touched races (Dragonborn, Kobolds, Guivre). This week we're looking at another strange race that has a long history in Dungeons & Dragons-- Gripplis.

Originally created by Brian Pitzer for the first set of TSR's Monster Cards in 1982, before making their first official book appearance in Monster Manual II (1983), and coming up in several books over the years, Gripplis are a neutral race of frog-like humanoids that live in simple tribes in the jungles and swamps of fantasy worlds. They use nets, blow guns, poisons and the like to overcome large prey like giant insects and to defend their territory from mortal enemies like bullywugs, giants snakes, and giant spiders.

The first time I used these frog folk in one of my games was in the form of "neutral bullywugs" that I introduced in the first module I wrote for my 4th Edition game. They caught a small yellow and black spotted frog person trying to steal from them, who later warned them about bad bullywugs, and, wanting to escape the swamp, took the creature as their prisoner/friend. They came to know the rather Gollum-like character as "Grooki" and he was quite popular with the heroes. He cemented his place in the pantheon of my most memorable NPCs when he served as a deus ex machina to save the heroes from the White Spider Queen and Mother of Chitine, Empress Kytix. He sacrificed his own life to kill an aspect of Kytix and saved the heroes. This sort of sacrifice instantly endeared him to the heroes. So much so, that I had his spirit bonded to a special druid item for Lorifain of the Action Society.

He was a fun character and, when I discovered that he had parallels to Gripplis, I realized I wanted to feature this race in one of my settings. Also, while Pathfinder already has an official Grippli race, I decided to give it my own spin to give the race a unique and useful appeal.

After the jump, will take a look at my homebrew for the Grippli race.

MIXED BAG. LET'S PLAY FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT!

MIXED BAG. LET'S PLAY FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT! ATTEMPT #1 "ODACHI VIII: WOLF 359?"

Welcome to my fourth Let's Play series. It has been a couple months and, due to technical difficulties and personal lack of self-confidence, I have not recorded a lot of content lately. The culprits are work, dungeons and dragons world-building and a general sense of ennui. Still, I decided, FTL would be perfect for Let's Play and planned to record some last week with Yeti (Zach Stanifer) and Aceofspadescard (Steven Pullam). Unfortunately, we recorded a good session but the footage was lost... You can enjoy the MP3 HERE.

FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAILER!

FTL, btw, is the most nihilistic science fiction game I've ever played; it is the Dark Souls of space simulation. Your mission is simple: warn the Federation about the Rebel Fleet coming their way! The problem is that the journey from start to finish is perilous to the point of being extremely depressing. You will die a lot. And there are no check points or second chances. If you die, you have to restart with a completely new vanilla crew. It is telling that this is the 8th Odachi run and I still haven't beaten the game on easy!

STEAM TRAIN- FTL

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES! HOMEBREW: DRAGON-TOUCHED! (PATHFINDER)

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

PATHFINDER HOMEBREW: 

MY CUSTOM DRAGON-TOUCHED RACES

Today I'm doing something a little different; sharing some detailed custom stuff I made for my Tabletop RPGs I run. As many of you probably know, for about half a decade now, me and my friends meet up about once a week to play Dungeons and Dragons, board games, video games, etc, and, once again many of you know this, I've shared content before. But I don't think I've shared like detailed mechanical stuff about my settings. So here, let's talk a bit about my newest setting...

I love Skyrim. But, ironically, it somewhat put a damper on two Dungeons and Dragons setting/campaign ideas I had swirling around in my head since as long as I've been developing my own settings/campaigns for Dungeons and Dragons:

1. It made me put off my Viking setting for a couple of years.

2. It kept me from making a campaign about dragon invasion.

Eventually, I made my Viking setting. The setting is based on the very first Dungeons and Dragons setting I ever made and I'll tell you guys about it another day.

Today, we're talking about dragons.

In my newest setting, Nyumeneera, dragons and "dragon-touched" races are an important element and theme. After all, the chromatic dragons and their servant races are part of the Tytanyan Pact, the most powerful empire that the world has ever known:

The dragons of Smolder, led by Red Typhon, live a decadent lifestyle where their chief concerns are maintaining their wealth from the mines of the island they inhabit and maintaining control over the prisoner/slaves/servants that work the mines. In order to maintain control, the dragons have three races that make up an administrative class in their society. The whip-cracking kobolds, the militant dragonborn, and the cunning and manipulative guivre.

These custom races are compatible with Pathfinder and, if you want to check them out in detail, there are links after the jump (hint: the links are under the pictures).

MUSIC MON! PHOENIX WRIGHT OBJECTS TO BOOTIES ROCKIN' EVERYWHERE!

PHOENIX WRIGHT WITH LYRICS!!

I think I always had plans to do a Let's Play of Phoenix Wright, but it was brentalfloss's newest homage that inspired me to finally play a series I've been curious about for so long. Phoenix Wright is a portable Nintendo franchise that is part animated novel and part puzzle game. The gameplay, as far as I can tell from my first case, is pretty simple but satisfying-- you listen to the fact, look at the evidence, and point out contradictions in the prosecution's case.

Hopefully, I'll have the first session of the Mixed Bag's Let's Play of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney posted on youtube some time this week.

TOGETHER WE RIDE DAT BOOTY 

(FIRE EMBLEM)

So, confession time, because I can do that, because technically this is still my blog-- I forgot my best friend's birthday this year. I called him to ask if he wanted to hang out on Monday only to quickly figure out the reason that Zach was acting so strange was that I had forgotten his birthday. I've been pretty busy lately, hence the lack of posts on the blog, and had lost the date in the shuffle. Quickly, I scrambled to save the day; I arranged a ride to his house and picked up Fire Emblem: Awakening for the 3DS (after all, the only other 3DS game he owns? Pokémon X). I also texted my friends to make sure they knew to meet up and we spent the day hanging out, going to the mall, and playing badminton. The lesson of the story?

Redemption is always a possibility.

And booty, yes booty, rockin' everywhere, rockin' everywhere...

GAME GRUMPS REMIX- UNDERNEATH THE WATER!

Let's end with some other news in my life, in no general order, just stream of conciousness:

I bought a couple of board games to review for Tabletop Tales, I've been working on an interesting new Dungeons & Dragons setting (not sure if I wanna use Pathfinder or another system to run it), I went and saw Godzilla (3/5), my friend AceofSpadesCard became a father to his first daughter Evelynn and I joined him for a 24 hour game marathon for charity (for about 12 hours of it since I had to work that day), my friend Valerie graduated college and became engaged to my number one friend Justin, I went to a housewarming part for my friends Chris & Laura, Zach and Katherine got a pitbull puppy named Indi (after Indiana Jones and his family dog), I plan to see the new X-Men movie soon (even it blows), I love playing the newest LoL Champion Braum, I bought some new Steam games for Let's Play, my Aunt Debbie graduated college, I canceled my ESO subscription, my Pokémon hat gives me super powers of starting conversations, I am considering shaving my beard so I can finally try cosplaying at a con, I'm super stoked for Guardians of the Galaxy & Mario Kart 8, Game of Thrones is super good, and...

I threw out my back earlier today lifting too many bags of dogfood and have been in pain all day, but I still managed to write a new blog post. Thanks for reading and please keep checking in for updates, because this Summer is gonna be good.

WTF WED! TIDUS LAUGHS AT THE BIG BANG THEORY. BARZOOPLE.

FINAL FANTASY 8: TIDUS'S LAUGH

BIG BANG TIDUS

BARZOOPLE!

Big Bang Theory is formulaic sitcom about a group of male nerds/geeks & their female friend Penny.

Before I begin my little rant, I want to point out that you can like anything you want to like. You are free to your opinion and I am free to mine. If you enjoy Big Bang Theory, more power to you, but this rant is to express how I feel this show is, ultimately, negatively impacting the way people look at and treat nerds & geeks.

I don't think my rant in entirely insightful or innovative, so I'm going to leave it for "Read More". 

MUSIC MON! ATTACK ON SUPER SMASH MY LITTLE RHINOCERATOPS VS. SUPER-PUMA!

SUPER SMASH BROS. X ATTACK ON TITAN!

My friends and I have been playing Wii & Wii-U every Sunday and one of our favorite time-killers is Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I mean, sure, it's not Melee. We all love Melee. But it's kind of fun to play Brawl since we all are less experienced with it. The main point? Playing Brawl has definitely hyped me for the next Smash Bros.

This glorious hand-made animation from Amazingartistyellow certainly helps encourage that enthusiasm, as well as my enthusiasm to give Attack on Titan a chance, as it has pretty much swallowed the anime fan community alive.

Before we move on, my big wishes for SSB 4 is that Mewtwo returns from Melee, they announce Pokémon Trainer returning from Brawl, and that Ganondorf returns....with a twist. I've always felt Ganondorf got shafted as a Captain Falcon clone. Give him a moveset indicative of his swordplay and maybe add in his mage abilities, perhaps with a Zelda/Sheik style transform between Ganon and Ganondorf, and you've got a uniquely brutal character. My main picks for a new entry? Pacman, Simon Belmont, Alucard, Toad, & Ridley.

FLUTTERWONDER

And how about a little whimsy inspired by pogo? There are a lot of fun remixes inspired by the MLP fandom, but there is something about these sort of trippy remixes that always set me in this pleasant, whimsical, blue, and curious sort of mood.

You can watch the original artist, Pinkiepieswear's music video here  http://youtu.be/viTkj0eu-fk

RHINOCERATOPS VS. SUPER-PUMA

Let's end with a new animated music video from Ninja Sex Party.

Clearly, Danny Sexbang was inspired by his love affair with the kaiju fest in Pacific Rim and decided to lay down a track meant to put a pair of giant monsters in the mood.

And clearly, that's a good enough place to end this Music Monday. Pardon me for the briefness, but I've gotta eat more terriyaki wings left over from "Super Bowl Sunday"*.

*"Super Bowl Sunday" may equal an excuse to gorge oneself and, rather than watch the game, do the same stuff that my friends and I do every Sunday. In this case, eat Krystals, make Advanced Dungeons and Dragons characters for an Oriental Adventures campaign, and watch Princess Mononoke.

P.S. I retract my briefness apology. And leave you on a simultaneously stupid and glorious .gif from the Super Bowl teaser for Transformers 4. It looks dumb, but it has Optimus Prime riding Grimlock, the T-Rex dinobot (that's a dinosaur robot), while wielding a sword.

WORD OF THE DAY! 1/7/14! WARNING! MAY CONTAIN ULTRAVIOLENCE!

EAGLEHEART: THE DEATH PUNCH.

DUB OF THE NORTH STAR EPISODE 1

death punch [deth-punch]/ 死拳 [shi-ken]
noun
1. A lethal blow from the fist/s either intentionally or unintentionally, especially if excessively violent or destructive.

EX. Let's start out Tuesday with just a little dose of the ultraviolence.

PHELOUS: DEADLY FRIEND

I dunno why-- maybe I'm just desensitized to violence after two decades of video games and anime or, probably more likely, the over-the-top violence hits the sweet spot of comedy in defying your expectations by surprising me and/or going past the graphic and into the cartoonishly over-the-top-- but I love a good bit of violence in my entertainment from time to time. Sure, I'll watch all the Disney musicals and yeah I deplore violence as a way to resolve conflicts in all but the most extreme circumstances where it is the only option or the only option left, but in fiction I can enjoy the fantasy or spectacle that is over-the-top violence. Some people may find such violence to be offensive or even a bad influence. I find it to be a harmless outlet for the pent up rage fantasies that we, as a very violent species, tend to have at least every now and then.

It's the reason why I love movies like Super; watching fantasy violence that is intentionally or unintentionally ridiculous is cathartic, funny, and harmless. The obscene and graphic, when absurd, is gratifying. It's the reason I've wanted to create an anime with a guy with a giant fist who fights super powered villains just so he could just punch the crap out of them. It's the reason I've wanted to write a comic book about a guy who comes back from each grisly death with a temporary new super power every time he is killed. It's the reason that I let my Dungeons and Dragons adventures include moments like a wizard literally blowing an Ettin's mind until his heads are a couple of blood fountains like shook up blood cola spurting a few feet into the air.

Hell, it's the reason I'm giving Dead Snow 2 any attention. They had me at death punch.

DEAD SNOW 2: RED OR DEAD?